Key Concepts in Morphology and Word Formation
Classified in Chemistry
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- Lexeme: The abstract vocabulary item listed in the lexicon with a common core of meaning.
- Word-forms: Physical realizations of the lexeme.
- Paradigm: The list of word-forms that belong to a word.
- Morpheme: The smallest unit of analysis with semantic content or grammatical function that words are made up of.
- Morph: The physical realization of the morpheme. Morphs are made up of one or more morphemes.
- Syncretism: Identical word-forms that belong to the same lexeme but are different grammatical words.
- Root: The basic form that remains when you get rid of all the affixes.
- Stem: A term that we only use in inflectional morphology; it is the form to which you attach an inflectional affix (only suffixes in English).
- Base: Anything; any root and any stem are bases, but sometimes there are bases that aren’t roots and stems.
- Trisyllabic Laxing Rule: Whenever you have a word and you attach an affix, and by attaching an affix you build a word of three or more syllables, the tense vowel of the root will become lax/short. Example: atom → atomic
- Compound: A lexeme that contains at least two bases which are both lexemes.
- Endocentric: When the head is within the compound, and the semantic and syntactic heads are inside.
- Exocentric: When the semantic head is outside, but the syntactic head is inside.
- Copulative: When the two heads are equally important in terms of meaning.
- Conversion: A word-formation process whereby you modify the word-class without modifying the input word; a process where the same word-form realizes two different lexemes.
- Clipping: Word formation process whereby you cut off a portion of the word.
- Backclipping or Apocope: When you cut off the back part of the word.
- Foreclipping or Procope: When you cut off the fore part of the word.
- Acronym: When you take the initial letter of the phrase and you read it as a word. Abbreviations cannot be read as a word. Acronyms and abbreviations differ in pronunciation.
- Blending: Word formation process whereby you take two words and blend them, as in breakfast + lunch = brunch. AB + CD = AD
- Productivity & Lexicalization
- Umlaut: A type of internal modification involving vowels. For instance, the relationship between foot and feet is one of umlaut.
- Apophony: A type of internal modification of the phonological segments of a word.
- Ablaut: A type of internal modification involving vowels. The change in form between sing, sang, and sung is an instance of ablaut.
- Synonyms & Antonyms
- Polysemy: Homographs and homophones whose meanings tend to be related.
- Homonymy: Homographs and homophones whose meanings are completely different.
- Loanword: You borrow the word and the meaning. Examples: paella, spaghetti
- Loanshift: You borrow the meaning but you translate it into your language.